Craft Night!

My best friends in Indy are all old friends from Purdue, and they're all guys. At the moment, all of my guy friends are in relationships with some great girls. I love this because:

1. The farting and dick jokes are kept at a minimum.
2. I can indulge in my ridiculous crafting/projects without ridicule because I now have some partners in crime!

Me and the girls just had our first Craft Night, which we plan to do once a month. Chelsea was the host, and we made yarn balls.

Laurette had made yarn balls before, and this is the example that she brought for the group.

Cute, right? Throw a couple of these in a basket, string several together to make unique garland, or make a large yarn ball and use it as a lantern. Here is how you make them.

Mix school glue or Mod Podge with water in a small bowl, make it fairly watery. Then soak a long piece of yarn in the glue mixture. Blow up a balloon (the bigger the balloon, the bigger the yarn ball, duh). Wrap the gluey yarn all around the balloon, like the girls are doing in this picture.

A couple of tips:

• Before you put the gluey yarn on the balloon, wipe the yarn off a little with your fingers. The yarn soaks up alot of liquid, and it's easier to handle on the balloon if some of the liquid is removed.
• The smaller balloons are much easier to handle than the bigger balloons. I had my heart set on making a big lantern, but after a couple of attempts, I just couldn't get the yarn to stay in place. I settled on a set of little yarn balls. But next time, I'll be ready to tackle the lantern project!

 This balloon was only covered halfway with yarn, to make a small basket.

 Here are all of our creations, waiting to dry.

 We used glasses to keep some of the balloons upright while they dried. Once we ran out of glasses, we started using these plastic mini-cups. Either way works great.

 Look at these loopy circles that Chelsea made, so cute! Try experimenting with different types of ribbons, or even lace.

We then let the gluey, yarn-y balloons dry for about two days. You might need to rotate the balloons once to make sure that they are drying evenly. After that, pop the balloon inside, and then pull the balloon out.

 Here is my finished product!

I haven't quite figured out what to do with them yet, but for now, they are on top of my TV stand.

First Craft Night- success! Except for the whole lantern thing, but oh well :)